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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

January 26 is Australia Day, the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet way back in 1788, and a day to celebrate all things Australian. It is a family day of BBQs and roast lamb, the latter for me - roast lamb prepared by my MIL.

And just so you know that I will be in good sewing company today, this is what my MIL gets up to in her spare time. These star blocks are all beautifully hand pieced by my mother-in-law. Her hand stitching is perfection and I can only hope to one day have the patience and time to piece with such precision.

The diamonds are all traced onto fabric using a template, placing the template so as to fussy cut the desired image, cut using scissors, and a 1/4 inch seam allowance marked with pencil. My MIL can hand piece two star blocks in 45 minutes! 80 blocks completed, another 160 to go.

Wow-love the stars, especially the Heather Ross mermaids.I feel like I'm down under celebrating with you because I've been watching lots of Australian Open tennis! The crowds look like they are in full celebration mode (or maybe they are naturally rowdy)

Beautiful.....I'm so curious as to how she's going to set them. I didn't piece that many before I gave up.........the only project I've ever hand-pieced, and I cheated and used machine-pieced borders! (you can see mine here.....

WOW! These stars are gorgeous. I was thinking that your MIL has great taste in fabric, very funky for a MIL, but given that she's drawing from your scraps she has great choices to work with. When I saw these on flickr, I was also thinking, OMG, when did you find time to do these? Your MIL is a star!Happy Aussie Day, enjoy your lamb roast! Kelly :-)

Her stars are divine! I am making a little pram quilt with six-pointed stars at the moment too (see kitbikquilts.blogspot.com current last three posts), but I use freezer paper templates ironed on to the back of fabric then tacked down because I find ruling a line on to fabric using a ruler leads to too much 'drag', causing me to cut 'wonky' looking diamonds....I'm obviously missing some essential technique! Hers are stunning!

How wonderful these blocks are!I was taught to use a needle, thread and a good pair of sissors as my basic tools, and they still are my favorite to use. I never use a rotary cutter because to me the sissors are part of the 'fun' of cutting and creating.!

Happy Australia Day! We had roast lamb last night, lamingtons for morning tea and a BBQ and pavlova planned for tonight - I love our "national" food! These are beautiful hand pieced stars, I am really looking forward to the end result, guess it will be ready by Easter if she sews that quickly?!

Those stars are amazing! I would love to share my hobby with my mother. My DIL has done a quilt or two, but is too busy right now with my darling grandkids, so I'll give her a pass on that and hope we can share this great hobby at some point in the future. And also that you will share that quilt when it is done.